


I Know I Had It Coming

by ataxophilia



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Cats, Gen, Minor Character Death, everyone loves cats right?, how do tags even work gdi, papa winchester feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2012-10-20
Packaged: 2017-11-16 15:48:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/541174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ataxophilia/pseuds/ataxophilia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam holds his breath, keeps his hand as still as he can, and the cat presses closer, butting its head into the curve of his palm. He breathes out a quiet laugh, curls his fingers into the kitten's scruff, and says, "I guess that means you're stuck with us."</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Know I Had It Coming

**Author's Note:**

> This is all because of a sick, twisted, perfect human being called Alex, who came up with the idea and then went through and dealt with my grammar.  
> The title is stolen from Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues, for reasons which will become clear.  
> My default setting is angst. You have been warned.

Sam's not sure why, exactly, he'd been sceptical about an angry spirit in a run-down old diner called Johnny's. It's not like they haven't seen crazier things, not like there aren't things in his life that make less sense, and really, after demons and possessions and curses and all the other crap they've been through in the last year, an angry spirit in a diner is practically normal. That's why Dean picked out the hunt, and Sam knows it. Because they've just lost Dad, because they're both caught between blowing up and fading away, because neither of them know what to do with themselves now. John has been their drive for the last twenty-odd years. Marching doesn't seem so important when there's no sergeant to drill it into you anymore.

It's a cut and dry case; find the bones, salt them, burn them, get the hell out of town. Sam takes his time with the research anyway, sifts through old records and articles, and learns that Jonathon Wright - Johnny to his friends - had been cheated out of his diner by his younger brother, and had stayed around to cause chaos ever since.   
He almost feels a little guilty about confronting him. Almost, but not quite, because John always told him that it wasn't right to feel bad for what they're hunting, and you're supposed to honour the dead you love. 

Hypocrisy is part of the package when you are raised a hunter.

Jonathon sets the kitchen on fire while they're in there, locks the doors so Dean has to kick them down, mouth and nose muffled by his sleeve to keep the smoke out. Sam wonders how desperate he must be to destroy the diner he's trying to reclaim, just to get rid of them. 

Neither of them notices the kitten until the fire squad arrives and they slink back to the Impala. Dean almost steps on it, swears the sky blue as it hisses up at him, hackles raised and tail fluffed up in terror.

"Fucking rat," Dean hisses back, lifting a foot to kick it, and Sam shoves him off-balance.

"Let it be," he mutters, too tired to deal with Dean's anger. It's only because they haven't found the bones yet, he tells himself. Dean's projecting his frustration. They fall back into the same habits so easily. "He's terrified."

Sam crouches down, head cocked, and holds out a hand. The kitten eyes him warily, its coat a muddle of black and brown and ginger and white. Its face is split down the middle, one half black and the other orange, like it's wearing a mask. Dean makes an annoyed noise and slides into the driver's seat. He doesn't slam the door behind him, but Sam knows he would if he didn't love the car so damn much.

"You can stay here, or you can come with us," he tells the kitten softly, feeling a little awkward offering the choice to a cat. "I'll make sure he doesn't hurt you."

The kitten pauses a moment longer, then trots forward tentatively, sniffing at Sam's fingers with a cautious delicacy. Sam holds his breath, keeps his hand as still as he can, and the cat presses closer, butting its head into the curve of his palm. He breathes out a quiet laugh, curls his fingers into the kitten's scruff, and says, "I guess that means you're stuck with us."

He slides his hands under the kitten's stomach, careful to be as gentle as he can. He's used to the cold bite of gripping a gun. The kitten feels terrifyingly fragile after that. Sam can feel each rib heaving in its chest.

Dean takes one look at the cat cradled in his arms as he ducks into the passenger seat and scowls. "No fucking way," he says, and Sam pulls the kitten closer to his chest instinctively.

"It's just a baby, Dean. It'll die if we leave it here." It's the start of the year, brutally cold, on the cusp of the February chill. The kitten won't last a week in the cold on its own.

"I don't care," Dean grunts. "We're not taking a fucking cat with us." 

The kitten mewls softly into the rough plaid of Sam's shirt, and he runs a finger down its back. "I'm not leaving him," he replies, frowning at Dean's legs. Dean's glaring out of the windscreen. It's a familiar routine. They're so predictable it's pathetic.

"Fucking kitten," Dean mutters after a minute of silence, and he turns the engine on. Sam knows the steady rumble means he's won this fight. He ducks his head to hide his smile, and the kitten mewls again, lifting its arm to claw ineffectually at his shirt.

They drive in silence for a while, Sam idly stroking the kitten and Dean letting his anger bleed into his driving, pushing harder on the gas until his shoulders relax and his hands unclench. He turns to Sam when they hit a straight and his face is softer now. "It got a name?" he asks, and Sam shrugs.

"He," he corrects quietly. "I don't know. There's no collar."

Dean shrugs, says, "Probably a good thing."

"He needs a name, Dean." 

"Sam," Dean snaps, getting annoyed. And Sam gets it - Sam knows that giving the kitten a name will make him more attached, and he knows that Dean's hoping to get rid of the kitten as soon as possible, so getting attached is the last thing he wants. 

But that doesn't mean he has to play along. "I was thinking Johnny," he suggests after a moment. Dean's smile sparks up mockingly.

"Did he shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die?" 

"Hilarious," Sam says drily, rolling his eyes. The kitten shifts in his arms, claws digging momentarily into his muscle before retracting again. "After the diner. Y'know?" 

Neither of them mentions their father.

The kitten yawns and burrows his head into Sam's arms. Dean nods once, shrugging. "Johnny it is, then."

They drive until four in the morning, when Dean's eyes are sagging too much for him to stay focussed on the road. They don't pass any motels, and it's another half-hour to the nearest town, so they pull up on the side of the road and curl up in their seats to sleep. It's cold and cramped but they spent enough nights doing it as kids to know that you just have to wait long enough and your body shuts itself off. Johnny stays curled against Sam's chest, his chest expanding and constricting quicker than Sam can match, an unfamiliar weight and warmth. Sam's reminded of Jess's back pressed to his chest, and of Dean curled around him years before that.

"M'glad you came to get me," he murmurs, just before he drifts off. Dean's eyes flicker open across from him, blinking blearily, and the look on his face is so open it makes Sam's chest ache. 

"Oh," he says, then, "G'to sleep, Sammy."

Sam does as he's told, and in the morning he won't remember how it feels like home, bent into an uncomfortable position in the shotgun seat of the old Impala, Dean curled slightly to face him, Johnny purring into his chest.

His necks aches in the morning, and when he blinks awake it's because Johnny has clawed his way up to Sam's shoulder and is kneading the soft skin where it meets his neck. "Ow," he mutters, batting at Johnny's paws lightly, and the cat mews into his ear, pushing his head into Sam's jaw.

"I think he's hungry," Dean says, and Sam twists his head to blink up at him instead, pulling a face at the way the movement makes his neck twinge. Dean smiles slightly and holds up a paper bag. "I bought milk. Isn't that what you're supposed to give them?"

Sam blinks again, mind still stumbling to catch up, and then Johnny jabs his nose into Sam's cheek, and the cold jolts him properly awake.

"Yeah." He stretches as he says it, and Johnny yelps his protest, claws shooting out and digging into Sam's skin. "Okay, yeah." Dean hands over the bag when Sam gestures for it, and he sets it down in his lap. Johnny mews again, louder this time, and Sam mutters, "I'm on it, I'm on it," absently as he lifts the cat off his shoulder and settles him next to the bag.

Johnny jumps slightly when Sam sticks his hand into the bag to pull out the milk, watching the bag with wide eyes, tail flicking back and forth over Sam's legs. Dean snorts a quiet laugh and says something about going to get coffee. Sam hushes Johnny quietly, unscrewing the bottle and staring down at it for a moment.

"How are we going to make this work, huh?" he asks, and Johnny rubs his head against Sam's hand. Shrugging to himself, Sam dips one finger into the milk and pulls it out, then offers it to Johnny.

The kitten sniffs the wet finger suspiciously, then laps the milk up, his tongue rough on the pad of Sam's finger. Sam huffs softly, almost a laugh, and runs his other hand over Johnny's head. Johnny pulls away from his finger and into the touch, and Sam takes the chance to wet his finger again. 

It takes Dean maybe twenty minutes to grab the coffees and then he's back. Johnny's curled up asleep on Sam's lap when he arrives, purring quietly. The milk's on the floor by Sam's feet. Sam accepts the coffee with a pleased noise, taking a gulp straight away. It's still hot enough to scald the roof of his mouth, just how he likes it, and in the back of his mind he wonders how Dean got back quick enough for that. 

"He liked the milk, then?" Dean asks, slipping back into his seat, and Sam hums affirmation around the rim of his paper cup. Dean drains the rest of his drink and tosses the cup into the back, starting the engine up again and pulling away from the curb smoothly, and then they're back on the road again. 

Dean plays Johnny Cash as they drive, singing along loudly and badly, and Johnny wakes up fifteen minutes into the drive and yowls along, clawing at Sam's legs. 

That feels a little like home, too. 

***

They slip into a new routine. It happens so easily that Sam doesn't notice, not really, not until Dean passes him a cup of coffee one morning and wakes the Impala up and laughs at something mindless that Sam says and Sam remembers, out of the blue, that a few weeks they were two disjointed parts of a family that had been half wiped out by a yellow-eyed demon. A few weeks ago Dean was driving in silence and Sam was trying to ignore the oppressive silence and they were both breaking apart in silence. 

The Impala doesn't suit silence. She never has. She was built for loud music and too-fast driving and laughter. Now, with Dean racing through his cassette collection and Sam humming along to the ones he knows (most of them) and Johnny climbing into places he shouldn't be and then mewling pitifully until Sam rescues him, she feels like Sam remembers, like somewhere safe and steady, like the places he used to read about in books.

Johnny gets bigger quicker than they're expecting, drinking more and more milk each day until they resort to keeping at least three bottles by Sam's feet. He gets braver, too, and when Dean slips away for a few days on a hunt because he's getting restless, Johnny clambers into his lap the night he gets back and sleeps there instead of against Sam's chest like usual.

Sam doesn't admit that he almost wants to do the same thing. He's growing closer to Dean again, starting to feel the same tangled-up jumble of affection he's always associated with Dean, and he doesn't want to shatter the progress with a few misplaced words.

Dean laughs more. Sam thinks, sometimes, when Dean throws his head back and roars until his cheeks and jaws are flushed, that it is Dean's laugh that he missed the most. John's death stole it away, but it crept back in, and now Dean laughs freely as Johnny tries to catch the shadows cast by the streetlights they stream past late at night.

Later, Sam will think that it is the buzz of hope rushing through his veins that curses them. Winchesters never get happiness without a time limit. He should have learnt that lesson by now.

The beginning of spring is starting to show when Dean turns to Sam and says, "What now?"

Sam has maybe been dreading the question a little. His fingers have been starting to itch, he hasn't held a gun in over a month now, the hunter trained into him is scratching at the surface of his skin. They've been indulging in a kind of domesticity that they were never born for. 

He shrugs. "Not much of a choice, is there?" he asks, and Dean's mouth twitches at the corner. Sam can't tell if it's supposed to be a smile or a frown. Johnny brushes against his ankle, and he reaches down to run a hand down his back. "You've found a hunt, haven't you?"

"Yeah," Dean says, "But we don't have to do it. I mean, nothing serious, just some missing people, all from the same town. We don't have to," he says again, and Sam straightens up to meet his eyes.

"Okay." And it's as simple as that, back into the old life, like slipping into a familiar pair of boots. Sam's fingers itch again. 

"What about Johnny?" Dean asks, and Sam looks down at the kitten again. He's almost twice the size he was when they found him, big enough to take care of himself, but still just a kitten. Sam gut twinges with guilt.

"We were always gonna have to let him go at some point, right?"

Dean shoots him a quick glance, face unreadable, and Sam knows he's checking if he's really okay with leaving Johnny behind. He keeps his face as blank as he can, smiling a little when Dean nods. "Tomorrow," Dean says, and Sam's grateful for the chance for one last night. 

"Tomorrow," he agrees, and lifts Johnny into his lap so he can bury his hands in his scruff and pretend they're not shaking.

He feeds Johnny the last of the milk when they stop for the night. There's too much left, more than he'd normally let Johnny have, but the cat licks it all up before curling up against Sam's chest and stretching until he falls asleep. 

Sam strokes a hand down his back and tries not to think about how this will be their last night curled in the Impala. Tries not to think about how Johnny will be on the streets tomorrow night, and he and Dean will be in a motel for the first time since John died, only one room instead of two.

Johnny's still on his chest when he wakes up.

It's not so strange that he worries instantly, but it's unusual. Dean always wakes up first, gets out and walks until his legs loosen again, and Johnny's taken to following him out of the car, this last week. Sam's, viciously, a little grateful that Johnny's spending his last morning with them curled up on Sam instead of with Dean, so he doesn't notice that Johnny's colder than normal until he pushes himself upright and Johnny doesn't move.

A lifetime of experience means it takes less than a minute for Sam to realise that Johnny's dead. His eyes skip immediately to the cat's chest, pick up on the lack of movement right away, but he presses a hand to the underside of Johnny's neck anyway, just to be sure. 

There's no pulse.

Rigor mortis has already set in. Johnny's corpse stays curled up on Sam's lap, looking just the same as when Sam went to sleep, because he can't work himself up to moving the cat. 

When he gets back, Dean doesn't even have to look at the cat to know.

"Fuck," he says, gaze raking over Sam's face, the way Sam's hands are clenched on either side of Johnny, just shy of actually touching him. "Fuck, Sammy."

He doesn't say he's sorry. Sam doesn't want him to.

Instead, he leans over and picks Johnny up with a tenderness Sam usually only sees him use on the Impala. He turns on his heel and carries the little body away, placing him under a tree carefully and pausing slightly before heading back to the car.

"Fuck," he says again, and then he's pulling Sam into a tight hug, and Sam realises numbly that this isn't just about Johnny anymore, this is about John, this is how they should have dealt with their father's death but never did. Dean's breath is hot and fierce on Sam's neck, strangely grounding, and Sam clings to Dean like a drowning man because Dean is all he has left now. Because he knows that he'll always be grateful that their father gave him Dean back, that his father died and not his brother, even as it makes him feel sick for thinking it.

He buries his face in Dean's shoulder and doesn't cry, just breathes through the catches in his throat and the emptiness in the stomach, until it doesn't hurt so badly anymore.  
Then he pulls away, runs a hand over his face, closes his eyes and opens them again. Dean watches him silently.

"We hunt," Sam says firmly, and Dean nods, and Sam hopes to whatever deity is listening that he hasn't lost his brother again.

Not Dean. He wouldn't be able to take losing Dean as well.


End file.
